The goldfish syndrome. Human nature and the posthuman myth

  1. Luca Valera
  2. Vittoradolfo Tambone
Journal:
Cuadernos de bioética

ISSN: 1132-1989,  2386-3773

Year of publication: 2014

Issue Title: Posthumano, más que humano

Volume: 25

Issue: 85

Pages: 353-366

Type: Article

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Abstract

Posthumanism is a myth. This does not mean to say that it constitutes a narrative devoid of any foundation, inspired by mere fantasy, far from it. The myth, as shown by Ries, Eliade and Lévi-Strauss on several occasions, is based on something real and true, and appeals to conceptual structures that keep it away from a mere scientific report: having had to do with the essence of things, it does not even have a purpose of classification in a given place or time. In this sense, the posthuman myth lives outside of time and out of the common space of existence, or perhaps, it lives in its own time and in its own space. Just like the myth, posthumanism lives in consciousness: to prove this assumption, we will discuss in greater depth the spatial and temporal coordinates of posthumanism, as well as its cosmological and anthropological point of view. Once demonstrated its mythical essence, it will therefore be easier to remember how the posthuman myth – despite intending to present itself as a radically innovative and progressive thought – makes no more than re-emerge some coordinates that have always been present in the history of philosophy.

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